January 31, 2026
Loop wars: AVIF edition
Animated AVIF for the Modern Web
Looping pics without players? Fans cheer; skeptics yell “just use WebM”
TLDR: A guide shows how to make looping, transparent animated AVIFs—image files that behave like GIFs but smaller. The crowd splits: fans love the clean, autoplay loops without video controls; skeptics say it’s slow on normal computers and ask why not just use WebM/MP4, making this a battle over simplicity vs performance.
Animated AVIF just crash‑landed into the spotlight, and the comment section instantly turned into a food fight. The post shows how to whip up a looping AVIF with FFmpeg—basically a command‑line blender for media—and even flags a quirky Debian hiccup that needs a detour file. But the real show? Team AVIF vs Team Why-Bother.
On one side, fans are hyped: AVIF is an image format (built from the AV1 video tech) that can animate like a GIF, loop automatically, and even do real transparency (think smoke or fire with see‑through edges). No clunky video player controls, just vibes. One commenter basically declared this the holy grail: animation + transparency at sane sizes across modern browsers.
Then the tomatoes fly. A performance‑minded critic says a folder of AVIFs makes everyday CPUs “chug like mad,” and swears JPEG XL is better anyway. Another chorus asks the blunt question: why not WebM or MP4—aka just use video? The counterpunch: videos often load as players; AVIF drops in like an image and loops neatly, GIF‑style. Meanwhile, someone shouted “TIL it loops like a GIF,” and the crowd dropped a fresh meme: “AVIF vs WebM is the new Tabs vs Spaces.”
So yeah, it’s not just a new format—it’s a new battlefield. Bring popcorn, and maybe a cooling fan.
Key Points
- •AVIF supports animation and is positioned as a better-optimized alternative to GIF for looping web animations.
- •FFmpeg is used to convert source media (e.g., WebM or GIF) to a Y4M intermediate with yuv420p pixel format.
- •Optional FFmpeg filters can limit frame rate (e.g., 15 fps) and scale (e.g., width 720px) to control size and performance.
- •Encoding to AVIF uses libsvtav1 with quality settings such as CRF 30 and zero bitrate, and audio is disabled.
- •As of December 2025 on Debian 13, direct AVIF encoding may fail unless staged to a Y4M file first; a single-pass command is provided but may be unreliable.